


Deliverance

by ariel2me



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lemore, though … Who is she, really? Why is she here? Not for gold, I’d judge. What is this prince to her? Was she ever a true septa? (A Dance with Dragons)</p><p> </p><p>Chapter 1: Septa Lemore is Young Griff’s mother<br/>Chapter 2: Septa Lemore is Ashara Dayne</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Septa Lemore is Young Griff’s mother**

_He seduced her_ , the other septas would whisper later. _That poor, foolish girl_. But Lemore knew better. She was three-and-twenty to his one-and-twenty, and she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

“The Mother and Father made us in their image,” Septon Barre said, holding out his hand, he who had been the fourth son born to a fifth son, whose Velaryon grandfather had given him the choice between a maester’s chain and a septon’s crystal. The gods with all their mysterious, unknowable ways had seemed a more suitable avenue for a young man not quite adept in the arts of learning and knowing.

“Then we should glory in our bodies, for they are the works of gods,” Septa Lemore said, reaching out for Septon Barre’s hand, she who had been the ninth child of a weary, broken mother, whose tanner father had never given her any choice at all before selling her to the High Septon when she was still a babe suckling on her mother’s breast.

How lucky she was, Lemore was reminded all her life. Her father could have sold her to a brothel, or to wicked men from strange lands with evil designs. The septons and septas only wanted her to serve the gods, and surely she could do _that_ much, in return for a roof over her head and not going to bed hungry every night. “ _You want for nothing here, Lemore. Nothing_. _You should be grateful_.”

She never wanted anything, until a young man with long fair hair arrived from Driftmark. His flowing lock went the very next day, of course, as did the name of his House, casualty of the decree that lowborn or highborn, in the eyes of gods, they were all the same, the septons and the septas: merely servants of gods.

(Of course, the High Septon was highborn, as was the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that. And no one had ever heard of a High Septa.)

Septon Barre was the name chosen by that young man from Driftmark. _A Targaryen bastard_ , whispered some. _Look at that hair, and his eyes_. “No, no, he’s a Velaryon,” insisted Septa Mordred, a wise and learned old woman who could have forged maester’s chains down to her feet if only the Citadel had not thought a cock prerequisite for learning. “The Velaryons are from the blood of old Valyria, just like the Targaryens.”

“Blood of old Valyria, but not dragonblood,” Barre told Lemore later. “That is why we are only good for providing brides and grooms for Targaryen princes and princesses, not for being kings and ruling the kingdom ourselves. My ancestors should have spent more time domesticating dragons,” he said wryly. “Not that I would be any good at dragon-riding. Riding a horse is almost too much for me at times.”

(Riding her was never too much for Barre, to Lemore’s delight.)

He had a way of poking fun at himself that Lemore found endearing. He had a way of poking fun at the Faith that she found scandalous and thrilling in equal measure. He had a way of letting in the world during their most intimate moments, showing her the enormity of what she had been missing, what she had never known, what she had missed missing, after a whole life spent serving gods and men.

She found her life when she discovered choices, and made them herself.

He found his faith, abruptly, when her belly started to grow.

“We could leave,” she told him. “Get married, raise our child together.”

(Later she would look back and deplore the foolish notions she had entertained. _I should have fallen for the ninth son of a tanner._ _Someone more like me.)_

“My grandfather gave me to the gods, just like your father did,” he told her. “I have sworn an oath. _You_ have sworn an oath.”

The time to remember their oath was before they shared a bed, of course, but his conscience did not trouble him then as it did now. “We must give our child to the Faith, so it can serve the gods as we do,” he continued. “And pray that the gods will forgive us our transgression.”

Their child, another servant of gods? Her child, doomed to a life without love, without family, without choices? Her child, paying for their supposed _transgression_?

She ran. She took her son and ran. He was looking for them, she was convinced. The septons and septas were looking for her and her son. Lemore saw dangers and enemies lurking in every corner in King’s Landing. Her son was not safe, would not be safe here. Look for a ship to cross the Narrow Sea. Leave the city for the countryside. Stay and hide. There were risks inherent in every avenue, and in the end she waited too long to make up her mind.

When the fat man came with his threat, Lemore had no choice but to accept his proposition. All she had to do was lie, and her son would be safe. All she had to do was lie, and her son would have a life beyond her imagining. All she had to do was lie, and she would not lose her son to the gods or to any septon.

All she had to do was don her crystal necklace and be Septa Lemore once again, and she could keep her boy.

All she had to do was deny that she was his mother, and she could stay by her son’s side, always.

All she had to do was pretend to be the woman teaching her son about faith and the gods, and he would not be doomed to a life serving gods from cradle to grave, a life without choices.

Later she would begin to fear that she had doomed her son to a life without choices after all, but by then the lie was so deeply entrenched, so profoundly ingrained, that to tell him that his whole life had been a lie was a cruelty she could not bring herself to inflict on anyone, let alone on her own child.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Septa Lemore is Ashara Dayne**

It was a girl, Ashara’s child. She did not name the babe Visenya, as the father would have wanted. It didn’t matter, in any case. The little girl died before she could ever hear her name being called.

Rhaegar crowned Lyanna Stark queen of love and beauty on the last day of the tourney at Harrenhal, and he deflowered Ashara the very same night. “I need you,” he whispered over and over again, and really, wasn’t needing better than wanting, stronger than wanting? Men had wanted Ashara all her life; she saw it in their eyes, knew it from their gaze that never left her face and their stares devouring her body. But none had needed her with the intensity and ferocity that Rhaegar seemed to need her.

His need was like a strong tide, and she allowed herself to be carried away with it. Or else, she gave in to her own wanting, her own never-expressed desire, her own never-admitted envy and jealousy. She finally woke to the enormity of her betrayal when Elia held her head and rubbed her back, gently, as she threw up on yet another morning. She left for Starfall the next day, telling no one, especially not Rhaegar, about the child growing in her womb.

Elia wrote to say that Rhaegar had disappeared. Elia wrote to say that the Stark girl was gone as well.

_He didn’t need me after all. I betrayed you for nothing, my princess._

Elia wrote to say – _I need you, come back to King’s Landing_.

_Not with your husband’s child growing inside me. You will hate me, as you must hate him._

She couldn’t bear for Elia to know the extent of her betrayal, and thus committed another betrayal – abandoning Elia when she needed Ashara the most.

They were all gone; her daughter, her brother, Elia and her beautiful children. They were waiting for her with the Stranger, waiting for her to join them in the land of the dead.

Rhaegar was dead too, but Ashara felt nothing about that.

“Tell me how my brother died,” Ashara pressed Eddard Stark, when he came to Starfall to return Arthur’s sword. He told her, and she could not bring herself to hate this sad, solemn young man she had danced with at Harrenhal, who after all was only trying to rescue his sister.

“Tell me how Elia and her children died,” Ashara continued pressing. Ned told her, and silently she cursed the whole lot of them, Baratheons, Starks, Lannisters, Targaryens and the rest. When Varys came with Aegon in his arms, armed with his plans and his schemes, Ashara knew this was her only chance for salvation.

She would live, to put Elia’s son on the throne.

She would live, to raise this motherless boy and remind him that he was loved, that he had been precious to his dead mother.   

She would live, to avenge the woman she had twice betrayed.

 


End file.
